Ruskin College: Education for Transformation

Colleagues,

As the end of the academic year nears it was great to spend some time today with TUC students at Ruskin who have just completed the Employment Law Diploma and Heath & Safety courses.

Pictured left is the group of trade union activists who have beneffited from their educational experience at Ruskin; and from whom Ruskin can still claim a live, direct link with the work of trade unions in the UK and internationally.

No form of workers' education no matter how short or even informal can be derided for its ultimate goal of seeking to enable some degree of change or transformation is society.

As Poalo Freire said: "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

At Ruskin I am proud to say that we continue to play a highly active part in facilitating this form of education. Pictured here are colleagues who make the TUC education activity at Ruskin what it is, Rachel Hemstock (TUC Centre Administrator), Tracy Walsh (Tutor on TUC Courses and labour studies BA and MA) and Nigel Williams (TUC Centre Co-ordinator and current student on the Ruskin labour studies MA!).

Even though the future of further and higher education in the UK remains uncertain, it is days like these which remind you of the central importance that education can play in, quite simply, making things happen.

In Solidarity

Ian